Richard Smallwood Discusses his Autobiography, “Total Praise”

By Bob Marovich

Richard Smallwood, the multi-award-winning composer, keyboardist, arranger, and Gospel Hall of Fame inductee, talked with the Journal of Gospel Music about his autobiography, Total Praise, released last month.

JGM: What inspired you to write your autobiography?

RS: I started off with the idea of writing a book about music. People had asked me where certain songs that I wrote came from, and I also wanted to talk about the industry. That was my original premise. Then my manager Roger Holmes and I were sitting at Verity Records in New York. I hadn’t told him about my depression battle, so I decided I would tell him. He said, “Are you going to write about it?” I said, “No.” He said, “Richard, that would help so many people.” I guess I was ashamed of it, I was embarrassed by it, I felt like I would be judged by it, but the more I thought about it, the more I knew that this would help people. So I decided to start from my beginnings.

JGM: Total Praise goes way back into your family’s history. How did you research that particular part of your history?

RS: There is a young man who lives here in D.C., Jared Sawyers, who is a genealogist. He went back to my 5x great grandfather Jack Cain, who was born in the 1700s. Between that and the stories I heard as a tiny kid, we came up with the history of my family.

JGM: Where did you locate some of the book’s historic photos?

RS: My mother started taking photos long before I was born, so that was part of my family tradition. Everybody had photographs that their parents left them. My cousin down in North Carolina had my great-great-great-great grandparents’ photos.

JGM: Your mother plays a major role in the book.

RS: She was my heart. She was my twin. I can’t ever remember us not being close. Even as I got older, when I got to be a teenager, that rebellious period, we were always very close. She picked up on my musical gift very early in my life because she heard me humming hymns that I would hear at church before I started talking. She got me a little toy piano when I was two, and she started exposing me to music, all kinds, in the house. She would take me to concerts.

She saw so many great things happen to me and for me. She was a great, great person. She was also an absolute extrovert where I am the exact opposite! She dragged me into situations that I would never have gone myself. She became a mother to my friends. Our house was the one everyone congregated at. She cooked for everybody. She was like everybody’s second mother.

JGM: You talk in the book about being part of the Gaither Gospel Pioneer Reunion program.

RS: I remember sitting there, thinking, Oh my God, these people have had such a significant impact on who we are. Walter [Hawkins], Edwin [Hawkins], and I listened to the same people coming up. We are from the same era, so those were the popular people in terms of recording and gospel groups. To see a lot of them there—some of the Ward Singers, the Martins, and Hulah Gene Hurley, from the Voices of Tabernacle—to see them there, I just walked around with my mouth open. These are the people I wanted to be when I was a kid!

JGM: Did you encounter any surprises while writing the book?

RS: One of the things I realized while writing the book was truly seeing God’s plan in my life. It was like a set up. God put so many people in my life, starting when I was a kid, listening to the great gospel singers of the ‘40s, ‘50s, ‘60s. No matter how short or long they were there, they were key influences to who I am today.

I think the biggest surprise was to find out what my stepfather’s purpose was. My relationship with my stepfather has been very complicated because he died when I was 23, so I had years of trying to figure it out, trying to sort through the anger, through the negative feelings. But he was the one who really pushed me into applied music. I had to learn how to play the hymns, play in all the keys. I didn’t want to play for church because I was too shy, so he forced me to play for church. There’s no better [music] foundation in the world than playing for church. You got to pick it up on the spot. It was almost at the end of the book when the light bulb went on.

A relative told me, “Richard, if your mother hadn’t married Smallwood, you would never have been who you are today.” That was a real shock, to see what God was doing. Even though there was a lot of negativity surrounding our relationship, there was purpose. Writing the book helped bring out a clearer picture of why everything happened.

JGM: Were there any challenges in writing the book?

RS: It was difficult to talk about a scandal that led to my family. So many people who knew my mother hold her in such high esteem, so I didn’t want anything to cloud who she was or to put a black mark on who she was. But I talked to a lot of people who knew her and they encouraged me that my mother would have wanted me to tell the story because others will empathize.

I believe one of the reasons we go through difficult times is to help others. But it wasn’t easy. I stopped writing the book on several occasions, said I wasn’t going to do it anymore, but my family and friends gathered around me and gave me a good kick, and I would get back up and do it again. Then one night, I heard the voice of my mother, clear as day, telling me not to forget to write about a key person in our family. So I was being pushed not only by my friends and family but by my ancestors to tell the story.

JGM: What has been the reaction to your book thus far?

RS: The feedback has been more tremendous than I ever thought it would be. I have been moved by comments from my church family as well as from people I have never met. Emails, texts, instant messages. I did a signing at Agape Family Worship Center in Rahway, New Jersey, and the pastor, Dr. Lawrence Powell, used some of the things I went through as his morning message. One of his members said to thank Dr. Smallwood because he went through some of the same things with his own stepfather. Again, there was purpose in my experience.

JGM: Do you see your book becoming a film?

RS: When my publisher finished the book, he said, “This is actually a movie!” Somebody wrote a review and said it was film-worthy, or that it could be on Broadway. So I’m open to things like that.

JGM: What are your plans for 2020?

RS: I’ll be doing a book tour after the holidays, hitting major cities like Chicago, New York, all the major places to promote the book. I also have some music in my head that I have to sit down and really work on. If there’s music up there, it’s supposed to get out!

For more information about Total Praise, visit: www.richardsmallwood.org.